Six Indian documentary projects vie for funding at Asian Pitch in Singapore

NEW DELHI: Six out of the 10 documentary projects shortlisted for the ongoing Asian Pitch in Singapore are from India. They include Dads of India-Children of the Misty Mountains by highly-awarded Gautam Pandey.

The others are Shalom Namaste by Saif Akhtar and Surya Balakrishnan, Children in Exile by Sumit Khanna, Life after Life by Raja Shabir Khan, The Love Commandoes by Vikram Mishra, and Beyond Transfusion by Gautam Grover.

Three to five projects may be selected at the Asian Pitch which is a collaboration between top Asian broadcasters – NHK (Japan), KBS (South Korea), PTS (Taiwan) and MediaCorp (Singapore) – to fund original HD documentaries produced by Asian filmmakers.

At the pitching event in Singapore, the four broadcasters are selecting and commissioning the winning stories for their prime time slots. The broadcasters will also market and distribute the programmes in international markets.

The films have to be original Asian human-interest stories or unusual treatments of existing Asian human-interest stories; human interest stories that will interest and excite Asian public broadcasters; and human interest stories that the Asian and international community will want to know about, apart from original programmes that depicts Asia's societal transition.

The selected films have to be made between August this year and September next year and marketed or shown in Festivals by October next year.